Friday, September 02, 2005

Most Americans love God and their families. Most Americans are contented with God and their own families. They are gruntled -- the opposite of disgruntled -- about the core conditions of their lives. They worry about their communities and society as a whole, especially if they think that problems in society will come back to dishonor God or hurt their families. Most Americans can form a gruntled center for themselves.

Politics is a competition. The small left and small right wings compete to draw that center one way or the other. The strategists and salesmen and women of the extremes have to exaggerate the differences in order to make the center afraid of the other side.

The Gruntled Center aims to bring a calm consideration of the real facts about religion and family life to help people in the center keep their bearings in the midst of the competing claims about "family values" and "rational thought."

I am sociologist and teacher by trade, and a churchman and family man by conviction and daily practice.

The Gruntled Center is where faith, family, and sociology all hold hands.